Ticketmaster

Glenn Egelko used Ticketmaster to buy tickets to a matchup this month at the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena between the United States and Iranian wrestling teams. This was real wrestling - the kind that used to be part of the Olympics until Olympic officials killed the event. It wasn't the kind in which over-muscled men leap from the tops of the ropes or bash each other with folding chairs. In any case, it was during the purchase process on Ticketmaster's website that Egelko, 63, of Ventura, encountered something unexpected.

Christian Staack was totally stoked about seeing the Eagles in concert at the Forum. More than a month before the Jan. 24 gig, he went to Ticketmaster's website and spent about an hour picking the perfect seat, one that afforded a head-on view of the stage plus full stereo sound. He paid $184 for the ticket, plus $30 in fees and $25 for parking. Staack ended up in a lousy seat on the extreme side of the stage, and his request for a partial refund was denied by the Forum's owner, Madison Square Garden Co. How that happened speaks volumes about the indifference with which some companies feel they can treat customers.

Ticketmaster, the largest U.S. seller of sports and concert tickets, agreed to buy Get Me In, a British online ticket reseller. The purchase, announced by West Hollywood-based Ticketmaster, a unit of Barry Diller's IAC/InterActiveCorp, is at least the third deal in a month to expand Ticketmaster's business. Terms of the transaction weren't disclosed.

SAN FRANCISCO -- Twitter is making a big push into e-commerce as speculation heats up that it's preparing for a widely anticipated initial public offering. The San Francisco company has hired Nathan Hubbard, former chief executive officer of Ticketmaster, as its first head of commerce to get people to shop on the popular social network, part of its drive to hit $1 billion in revenue in 2014. Hubbard starts Thursday at Twitter, he said in an interview. He will report to Adam Bain, Twitter's head of global revenue, and will commute from his home in Los Angeles.

Regarding the dispute between Ticketmaster and Pearl Jam ("Pearl Jam vs. Ticketmaster: Choosing Sides," June 8): Recently a friend and I decided to splurge on opera tickets at $95 apiece. I went to the Ticketmaster outlet at my local Tower Records store, only to find that, while they could give me my tickets on the spot, they took cash only--no credit cards. Not having $200 on me, I went home and called the Ticketmaster phone number. No problem with credit cards there--but, unfortunately, they couldn't tell me where I'd be sitting!

February 4, 2013 | By Todd Martens and Wesley Lowery, Los Angeles Times

Ticketmaster, long the dominant player in the concert ticket space, now has major company. Los Angeles-based AEG, the sports and entertainment empire that owns Staples Center, Nokia Theatre, L.A. Live, the Kings and a minority stake in the Lakers, is angling to reinvent the ticketing business. It's counting on Staples Center, the busiest concert venue in the United States, to get there. AEG is now selling concert tickets at its trio of L.A. Live venues via its 18-month-old AXS ticketing platform.

Will Ticketmaster be outpunched by its former chief executive? Fred Rosen, who is credited as the primary architect of Ticketmaster's dominance in the ticketing business, this weekend will begin rolling out a new service to rival his old company. And he's starting by taking away Ticketmaster's biggest customer — AEG, a Los Angeles entertainment company owned by billionaire Philip Anschutz that promotes thousands of concerts a year and operates more than 130 venues around the world, including Staples Center and L.A. Live.

The New Jersey attorney general's office has reached a settlement with Ticketmaster over the recent sale of tickets to Bruce Springsteen performances in that state, calling for major changes to the way Ticketmaster does business. The settlement -- announced Monday, a day before hearings open in Washington on the proposed merger between Ticketmaster and Live Nation -- requires Ticketmaster to reform several of its business practices, in particular with regard to its ticket resale operation, TicketsNow.

It was April 12, 1983--opening day for the Chicago White Sox--and Ticketmaster's chairman, Fred Rosen, was worried that all 38,306 fans would be sitting in the same seat. Fearing a last-minute snafu, the 41-year-old New York lawyer-turned-entrepreneur had come to Comiskey Park to see the fruits of his small, upstart company's first major triumph over Ticketron, the nation's giant computerized ticket agency. "Seeing all those people there with your tickets . . .

SAN FRANCISCO - Twitter hired Ticketmaster's former chief executive to spearhead an ambitious push into online commerce, fueling speculation that the social network could move quickly toward an initial public offering - as soon as early 2014. "To me this is just another indication that Twitter is serious about getting its business in order," said Brian Blau, research director for consumer technologies at Gartner Inc. But as the most hotly anticipated technology IPO since Facebook, Twitter is moving cautiously, looking to avoid the massive hype that dashed Facebook's debut.

Labor Day weekend in Las Vegas will be witness to a flurry of special activities -- concerts, comedy and, yes, cocktails. They're timed to mark the unofficial end of summer. Here are 10 events that may pique your interest: Black Sabbath : The group that helped define heavy metal and boasts a quadruple-platinum album (“Paranoid”) performs Sunday, Sept. 1, at 8 p.m. at the MGM Grand Garden Arena . Tickets from $39.50 to $129.50 available through Ticketmaster , (800)

Glenn Egelko used Ticketmaster to buy tickets to a matchup this month at the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena between the United States and Iranian wrestling teams. This was real wrestling - the kind that used to be part of the Olympics until Olympic officials killed the event. It wasn't the kind in which over-muscled men leap from the tops of the ropes or bash each other with folding chairs. In any case, it was during the purchase process on Ticketmaster's website that Egelko, 63, of Ventura, encountered something unexpected.

The Angels have launched their own ticket resale program, hoping to help season-seat holders save a few bucks while reducing the number of cut-rate tickets available on third-party websites. The Angels and New York Yankees are the only two of the 30 teams to opt out of an agreement between Major League Baseball and Stub Hub. The Angels had grown frustrated as fans realized they often could buy a cheaper ticket from Stub Hub than from the team itself. "What we're trying to accomplish is to build pricing integrity back into the secondary marketplace," said Robert Alvarado, the Angels' vice president of marketing and ticket sales.

Five funny folks will entertain Feb. 22 and 23 in Las Vegas when these stars of cable's Comedy Central perform standup schtick during the “Comedy Central Vegas Weekend.” Comics Dave Attell and Jim Norton will bring their adults-only humor to the Hollywood Theatre at the MGM Grand both nights. Attell, who has a career spanning more than 20 years, stars in the Showtime series “Dave's Old Porn.” Norton, who is heard daily on SiriusXM's “Opie and Anthony” program, has also written two bestselling books.

In its bid to create a ticketing system that can eventually compete head-to-head with Ticketmaster, Los Angeles entertainment giant AEG is putting forth a bold argument: The long-standing concept of the morning on-sale needs to die. "It's 2013, a 24-7 fully-distributed on-demand world, and we still have this process that's a legacy of how we used to sell tickets 30 years ago, when you stood in line outside of Tower Records," said Bryan Perez,...

February 4, 2013 | By Todd Martens and Wesley Lowery, Los Angeles Times

Ticketmaster, long the dominant player in the concert ticket space, now has major company. Los Angeles-based AEG, the sports and entertainment empire that owns Staples Center, Nokia Theatre, L.A. Live, the Kings and a minority stake in the Lakers, is angling to reinvent the ticketing business. It's counting on Staples Center, the busiest concert venue in the United States, to get there. AEG is now selling concert tickets at its trio of L.A. Live venues via its 18-month-old AXS ticketing platform.

After successfully challenging established players Blockbuster and Netflix in the DVD business, Redbox is now going to attempt to rival one of the nation's most powerful companies: Ticketmaster. The operator of 38,500 kiosks in grocery stores, drug stores and Wal-Marts across the country launched a ticketing business Wednesday with Philadelphia as its first test market. Its second market will be Los Angeles, where the company plans to enter the ticketing business in early 2013.